The Glorious Lessons of the Honey Bee

I love watching bees gathering nectar from flowers.  To watch them amble into a blossom and walk along the silken curtains is pure delight.

Put yourself into that image a moment—of being a worker bee gathering provisions for the hive.   See yourself walking into a sacred hall completely surrounded—top to bottom with pink or yellow curtains.  See how easily you might stumble in the soft folds as you make your way to the center.  How you would ecstatically gather the gifts left on the altar in baskets carried at your sides.  How you would thrum with a Divine urgency to complete your task.  How you would be charged with an electric desire for sweetness—and to work for the good of the hive.  How it would be so hard to turn back from that sacristy of wonder and soar, not knowing if you will find another. And yet, that unknowing would be just a part of the play—for in your heart of hearts you would know–there are other sanctuaries—there are as many as you need, each one opening before you as you dip and rise in the morning air on your holy search for the stuff dreams are made of—the nectar of labor—the pollen of ideas—the honey of desire.

Why not do this now, right where you are?  Know that you have a dream and that it is laden with sweetness.  It is a dream to fulfill your Heart’s Desire.  And Your Heart’s Desire blends seamlessly with the Desires of the Heart of the World—to share, to give, to shine, and to work together in one incredibly beautiful, intricate, and marvelous dance– to spread the gifts of the sun into the darkest corners of the hive of your community. 

But you mustn’t kid yourself—you need to know that just as there are assassin bugs hidden in the curtains of the flower waiting to ambush the honeybee, there are doubts and fears hiding behind the curtains of your mind seeking to destroy your dreams and thwart your desires. 

So look before you leap.  There is little wisdom in just jumping into the darkness—no matter how romantic some people would like to make this act to sound.  Study yourself and what it is you want to share with the world.  Know yourself and your dreams.  Know what you’re after.  And while the honeybee is a lone forager, you needn’t embark on your journey alone.  Take the hand of a mentor and soar with them to the fields laden with possibilities that await those workers brave enough to face their fears and doubts and leave them far below, as they rise to new heights of creativity and wonder.

*****************

Many of you who know me or follow me on facebook or twitter, have heard me use the expression: “You’re the bee’s knees.”  Now you know why I say it.  Pass it on.  The world needs all the sweetness it can get—the sweetness of positive acknowledgement and praise, the honey of gratitude, and the pollen of encouragement.  It needs you and your baskets of destiny to go out into the world and spread the nectar of Your Heart’s Desire.


Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog


A Christmas Story In July: Joseph, the Stars, the Animals, and the Shepherds–the Other First Mothers of the Holy Child

Joseph, the Stars, the Animals, and the Shepherds—the Other First Mothers of the Holy Child

By Joseph Anthony

The animals, the stars, the shepherds, and Joseph were the first to prepare a place for the Holy Child. The cow swept the floor of the stable room with her great, swishing tail. The horse, using his strong, massive head, nudged the manger into the clear, sun-lit spot that the cow had cleared off. The goat ate all the trash nearby that was too big for the cow to sweep. The barn swallows in the rafters sang the stars from the darkness, telling them to come out and light the stable for the tired family, and the way for the wise ones bearing gifts. The lambs woke the shepherds in the fields and told them to rise and go to the stable in the valley. And they obediently rose and went and stood guard by the door. The spiders spun the swaddling clothes and laid them in the manger. And the donkey? The donkey got to carry the Burden of Light and the mother with the dark eyes across the desert to the waiting stable. And Joseph? Joseph got the whole thing rolling when he listened to his dream. He had been doubting her story, while at the same time achingly trying to believe it. He had felt ashamed that Mary was with child and they were not yet married. But when the dream awoke him in the night with an angel speaking to him of Holy Ghosts and Saviors, and the name with which he was to give the Child, he obeyed. He rose and took Mary to Bethlehem.

But do not think for a moment that the animals acted purely out of kindness. Animals are animals and they were hungry for the golden food of the Divine Child. The stars too ached for an infusing of new light. And the shepherds had come because they had heard rumors of treasures being brought to the Child, and being poor shepherds, they would ask for a cut in the goods since they stood guard at the door while the baby was born.

Now before you start panicking at the image of the Holy Child being eaten by the animals, remember, according to your own traditions, that the Holy Child came to be eaten every Sunday. And do not think for a moment that He came to only be eaten by people. He came to be ingested by the world—most especially the animals that live within us all. And it is by nibbling the Holy Child with kisses that the animals are nourished. And the Child simply laughs for His body and His energy are inexhaustible, wildly lavish, and never ending. They are like all good bread—warm, golden, sweetened with honey, and fortified with the richest of grains.

And so after the Child was born, Mary and Joseph slept in each other’s arms. And as they did the shepherds stuffed their sacks with left over gold, and the stars inhaled huge bellyfulls of light, and the animals gathered around the manger bestowing big, wet, full-lipped kisses on the Child, much to His delight and laughter. And as they partook of Him, wings formed in their backs and their front legs became arms and hands, and their backs straightened, and they began moving in a circle around the Child as music streamed through the room like an audible wind. And they danced, a heavenly host of angels singing praises as their animal shadows danced along with them on the walls of the stable.

Then Joseph, always a light sleeper, opened one eye and peeked at the divine, rollicking dance. And he gently rose so as not to rouse the sleeping Mary and stepped into the circle, taking the hands of the angels on either side of him. And he danced and he wept for the sheer joy and exhaustion and the worry and the fear and the shame of those last few months. And all of his pent emotions were released from his body as he whirled around the manger in the circle of animal angels. Whoever this Holy Ghost Father was, Joseph was just happy to be asked to raise the Child. And as he danced he knew then that he must teach the Child to build with wood, to use His hands to be gentle and strong and healing, to fashion useful and beautiful tables for families to eat at and talk about their day. For not only did the animals and the stars and the people need the touch of the Holy Child, but so did the trees and the hammers and the saws, and the nails.

And then, as the angels fell back to all fours and their wings folded, neatly tucked into their shoulders, Joseph patted each animal on its large, solid forehead and then turned to go back to sleep with Mary, who for her part, had woken too, but being too tired to dance simply watched her dear Joseph dancing with the animals and wept for gladness at having such a wonderful man.

And as Joseph turned to go back to the straw covered floor, he looked at the Beautiful Child smiling up at him from the manger. He bent low, looked deeply into the Child’s eyes of sky and of stars, and kissed Him. Joseph was taken aback with a shock by the sweetness of the Child’s skin. The flavor coursed through him like warm apple cider on a crisp, cool autumn day. And the Child reached up and played with Joseph’s tear-soaked beard and said, “Thank you. Thank you for listening to your dreams. They were my first gifts to you and you honored them by sharing them with Mary and the donkey. So thank you. Thank you for opening your heart to me.”

And as Joseph lay back down, taking Mary into his arms, he wept some more. For there would be more dreams. And some of them would be dark, blood-filled dreams; dreams of Herod and of pyramids; dreams of bird-headed beings and jackel-headed beings, and someone called Osiris; and a goddess—Isis–was to come to him in a dream and beckon him to bring the Child to her land. She would promise protection and safe passage beneath Nut, goddess of the stars. And then there would be other dreams— dreams of frantic searches for the Holy Child in crowded streets; dreams of wine flowing at parties and Passovers; and reoccurring dreams of a symbol he did not understand—two beams of wood forming a cross. Those dreams would both trouble and enliven him the most, and it would be years before he understood why; and there would be dreams of the dead rising, dancing from the grave as flesh flew back to their bones; and there would be dreams of heavenly cities of gold descending from the sky; and lovely, lovely wood-scented dreams of building tables with the Holy Child while laughing, singing, and looking into each other’s wonder-filled eyes.

Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog


Circles, A Story Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson

He stood looking outwards towards the horizon.  He turned a slow pirouette, and saw horizon beget horizon. He knew the vision around him revolved from where he stood; that he was the central fact of things; that indeed it was he that sent the world spinning. His thoughts propelled the movement of the cities, the commerce, and the expansion of all the information that we see and know. He was Reason and surely all things revolved around Reason.

Until the trembling began.  From below him the ground shook and continued shaking until he was toppled from his center, and there arose in his place another, whose vision of the horizon circumscribed his until his were but the tiniest ripples in the pond and the new man’s the outermost.

The new man reveled in his place of centrality.  His eyes inscribed wider and wider circles for he was Understanding and he knew that Reason was useless without him.  Indeed, he knew that he himself—Understanding–ruled the world.  And thus he stood, slowly turning and scanning the horizons, admiring the width of all that was his.

And then the ground again began to quake.  It took longer for Understanding to teeter off his center, but teeter he did as the ground below him opened and up pushed a woman dusting off her skirt and blouse.  Gradually she realized her place.  Her eyes adjusted to the vastness around her.  Her vision of the surrounding horizon quickly outran the first two men’s and the circles of her understanding stretched much further than theirs.  For she was Beauty and she knew that without her, Reason and Understanding were nothing.  Understanding fell in love with her and from their union Wisdom was born.  And Wisdom thought herself unconquerable, as she stared out over the vast expanse of land, while the other three stood helplessly in her shadow.  Until another woman rose from the depth, more beautiful than Wisdom.  Her name was Power. And Wisdom and Power were both beautiful, more beautiful than Beauty herself.  And each woman’s vision of beauty was eclipsed by the other’s, making the other’s seem almost insignificant. 

And so on and so on, woman after woman, man after man were born, each making the circles of the last seem tiny and impermanent, as if drawn in the sand. And each had their own spin on the ever-expanding vision: Intelligence, Beauty, Philosophy, Science, Feelings, Industry, Religion, Character, and more than a few employed variations of Truth to grow their horizons, but even these were outrun by greater visions of Truth that appeared with every new generation.  Some even reached back and pulled the visions of Truth from the pages of history and the world rejoiced in the seeming newness of the old until, at last, these too gave way to even greater circle of progress.

Yet it did not escape a single one of the people standing in the circles within circles that the horizon had become a kind of prison—a border, a boundary that they could never scale.  If they moved closer it moved away, and some of the people began to feel trapped, hopeless, caged.  People began to notice that the earth no longer shook when a new visionary arose.  A thin, metal flavor of futility began appearing in everything they ate or drank.  Panic spread as a gray dust began coating everything over time. And then the wars began.

Reason attacked Understanding and Intelligence attacked Philosophy, Logic tried to stomp them all, as did Feelings.  And Feelings seemed to be winning all the battles until Religion stepped in and began attacking Beauty and this calmed things down for awhile, until Science attacked Religion.  But then each successive Religion began believing their own vision to be the circumscriber of all other horizons and began belittling the others and very soon they too were at war, and once the wars over Religion bloomed, all hell broke loose and pretty soon the horizon came to be known as Death and everyone tried to run towards their own center to escape that final horizon that seemed to both draw closer to them and roll elusively away.  And it was this dance of Death coming closer and moving away that drove many of the people mad because they could not reconcile a horizon that expanded and contracted in such horrible waves.  And millennia passed, and things seemed very dark indeed. 

And then there was another opening, only this one came from above.  The sky opened the immense blue curtains laced with white to reveal a light so dazzling the world seemed to slow and to stop.  The light descended as a sphere, glowing and vibrating with an unseen bell and an invisible harp.  And as the sphere touched the ground, it burst revealing a child—a child so radiant the horizon lines began to dissolve and the people turned away from them and towards this new center.  They found themselves bending their knees and falling upon their faces. 

“Arise,” said the child, “I am not an idol.  I am not to be worshipped.”

“Then why have you come?  Are you not our salvation?” the people asked.

“I have come to bring you a gift.  And it is not salvation.  Salvation is only the storing up of your souls in some distant place, and that is what you have all been doing already and what have you gained?”

“Some say we have gained eternal life.” said the people.

“But look around you.  You see the horizon you call Death approaching.  That is your eternity.  No, the gift I bring demands you open the storehouses of your souls and spill yourselves over into one another, flooding the horizon with the combined force of your letting go.”

The people were speechless.  They had never heard such talk. 

“But what is this gift you bring?” They finally asked, “What is the gift that will blend us with one another in such a way as to dissolve the horizon?”

“It is a trinity,” said the child, “it is a gift in three parts.  Use them separately and you shall have great joy, use them together and your joy shall be unending and the horizon will never threaten you again.  It will become what it is—yourselves.  The horizon is simply an extension of you.  And if you fear the horizon it is because you fear yourselves—you fear the limitless within yourselves.  You fear your own true power.”

“The gift,” the people cried, “what is the gift?”

“It is a trinity made up of Innocence, Play, and Wonder.  And it is called Love.  And Its nature is to give and to share.  It is to create and to merge together.  It is to dream unending dreams of unity and service, delight and commitment, possibilities and hope.  It is to Create.”

The people were stunned.  They stood there and suddenly realized they no longer feared the horizon.  When they turned to look it seemed much closer, like a breath, like a touch.  And it was no longer threatening and it was no longer a cage.  It had somehow transformed into an actual vision of Wonder and this vision blossomed with a fragrance of adventure that drew all of the various people together.  Reason and Understanding walked hand in hand with Beauty and Religion and Science.  Even Truth joined hands with Character and became inseparable.  And all because Love had come.  Love had entered the circle as a child and became the circle.

 Love, as given by the child in the forms of Innocence, Play, and Wonder, had loosened the souls from their bounds and blessed them to run together like beautiful rivers towards a horizon that was at once within them and without.  It was Now and it was Evermore. 

And the horizon’s name even changed.  It became known as The Ocean of Possibilities.

 

Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog


Ralph Waldo Emerson–America’s Mystic, and the New Curriculum for Teenagers of All Ages


“Life is a series of surprises.”–Emerson

 

I propose we throw out all the text books in all of our nation’s high schools and make Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays required reading (alongside the poetry of Mary Oliver).  Have every student create a story or play, a song or a dance, or a mural based on their understanding of one of Emerson’s essays.  Have them write their own essays and speeches modeled after Emerson’s.  Not only would the drug and crime rates drop in our country, but the country would blossom in unimaginably beautiful ways when our young people are infused with such depth and breadth of wisdom as Emerson’s words contain.

One essay I would have every high schooler read would be the one entitled, “Circles.” It is challenging and inspiring, moving and frightening, poetic and profoundly wise.

It begins:

“The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end.”

In this masterful essay Emerson uses the form of circles to describe the nature of human progress, and the course of our conversations.  He uses the image of circles to describe relationship between friends.  He uses the circle to describe our religious longings and leanings. He employs the image of ever widening ripples to challenge our experience of permanence and the efficacy of our ideas.  He uses the circle to describe the growth of a person’s life.

“The life of man is a self-evolving circle, which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outward to new and larger circles and that without end.”

We find even the poets (whom Emerson both values and writes as) use this image.  Here’s Rilke translated by Robert Bly:


                        I live my life in growing orbits
                        which move out over the things of the world.
                        Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
                        but that will be my attempt.

                        I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
                        and I have been circling for a thousand years,
                        and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
                        or a great song.

                        –Rilke

 

In his essay Emerson also prefigures what we call today the Law of Attraction when he says:

 “Like draws to like; and…the goods which belong to you, gravitate to you, and need not be pursued with pains and cost.”

Moreover Emerson tells us the only reason we are aware of this movement of circles in our lives is because we have “some principle of fixture of stability in the soul.  While the eternal generation of circles proceeds, the eternal generator abides.”

And to me, that “eternal generator” of new horizons is our Heart’s Desire as spoken by God into our very souls–it is the fixed point from which we move.

But following our dreams can be difficult.  We will need to change and to rise up from where we are presently.  We must accept that life changes, that life is indeed cyclical in nature:

“Thus there is no sleep, no pause, no preservation, but all things renew, germinate, and spring.”

Emerson encourages us to challenge the idea that we even need to grow old—spiritually, that is.  He says we should, “grow young.”  For it is the state of infancy Emerson suggests that is “receptive, aspiring, with religious eye looking upward…and that abandons itself to the instruction flowing from all sides.” 

And how do we become like little children?  What do we seek in this life full of circles?  Emerson puts the answer this way:

“The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire, is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose out sempiternal [eternal, unchanging] memory, and to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle.”

And if you ever watch a young child drawing, one of the first things they ever scribble, perhaps the very first—are circles—in the sand, on the wall, with finger paint, on paper—young children adore drawing circles.  We must regain this innocence and ability to create.

To do this Emerson says we need enthusiasm.  For “nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”  When we are following our dreams, pursuing and dancing with our dreams right to the utmost horizons we are driven by passion and enthusiasm.  For, “the way of life is wonderful…it is abandonment.”  We must abandon ourselves to our dreams, to the drawing of new circles—which is exactly the way a child draws.

But there is a warning.  There is one thing Emerson says that can be almost as intoxicating as following our dreams, something that if we become ensnared in it, our dreams can easily die.  Something teenagers need to be truly educated in–in terms of the consequences and horriffic effects it causes. What is it he refers to?  Addiction.  In particular he mentions opium and alcohol, but we could add all the myriad of addictions that were not officially named in Emerson’s time, but that our young people are subject to.

The point is addictions “ape in some manner the flames and generosities of the heart.” They allure us with promises, counterfeit promises that once we touch them they dissolve in our hands, but as they do so they cast a spell which makes the addict crave more promises—the next one will be different. 

Emerson actually ends his beautiful meditation with the somber, frightening warning to steer away from the drugs that make our passions “wild.” 

But luckily, if we are astute readers, he gives the cure earlier in his essay:

“The key to every man,” he says, “is his thought.”  We all have an inner helm “which we obey.”  And we can only be reformed by being shown “a new idea which commands his own.”  For the heart “refuses to be imprisoned.”  Eventually, (if the addict survives) the pain gets bad enough in his mind, in his body, or his soul , and he seeks a new thought, a new way of living, and is brought back from the gates of hell into the land of surprises, the land of the living, the land where dreams come true—and his heart is set free.

Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog


Unto Us a Child is Born

Looking back he could see there were signs.  There was the aching pressure inside—a relentless pushing on the heart.  There was a deep, inexplicable urge to flail about and weep.  There was the uncontrollable moaning and the stinging and unapologetic contractions of his ability to notice anything else except the wound.

 

There was the seemingly insatiable hunger for the bizarre, the twisted, the perverse, and the terrifying.  Ingesting these somehow fueled the desire for light and more light—not a recommended daily-allowance diet–but it worked for him because there was grace and mercy woven through it all. Nothing else could transform such food into glorious nourishment.

 

There was the thirst for touch combined with a shockingly violent aversion to it.  Touches came and then the instantaneous flashing recoil—like a frightened snake.

 

And yet, through all of this, the most telling signs were the flowers, the moon, the fireflies, and the toads, the appearances of the praying mantis tilting her triangular shaped face, while she preened her front claws; there were the appearances of the slender, golden koi with their wise, whiskered faces and their flowing fins that trilled in the dark waters, where years before nothing stirred. 

 

So even though the darkness shrouded him like a silken cocoon, even though he felt himself dissolving into the liquid of grieving, even though parts of his heart hardened, he could sense the temporary nature of it all.  He could sense wings forming in his back—with little, unscratchable itches between his shoulder blades; he could sense signals of being able to move great pages of appendages that were not yet visible.

 

And there was the light, especially the light of the fireflies that made it alright for the wound to widen.  There was something in their dazzling flashes of brilliance—staccato signals of visible Morse Code, tiny celebratory fireworks, little bits and pieces of some unseen bonfire rising into the summer night. 

 

And the darkness–sweet, blessed darkness that made it all so.

 

He came to love the darkness.  The darkness held such wonder.

 

Like the time he drove down highway 179 in Sedona at midnight for the first time.  He did not know he was surrounded by mountains.  All he could see was the barely-lit road ahead, and all he could think of was: “Where am I going? Where is the exit?”

 

He did not know he was being watched by the gentlest of souls, towering and majestic, yet bending towards him.  He did not know they were there, and yet, sheltering him from other storms they stood, and to keep up with him, they picked up their ancient skirts and cloaks and followed him with silent, graceful movements.  There were no earthquakes or avalanches—just mountains that both stood and danced around him in the darkness, guiding and keeping him from harm.  They were more than sentinels; they were angels of the greatest tenderness.

 

And so when he watched the fireflies rising from the cemetery grass, like souls dancing in the night, when he saw the fireflies garland the tops of the trees, he knew the darkness inside was good, provided he never lose his ability to sense the light. 

 

For this darkness held the seeds of light.  This darkness nursed beings of light.  This darkness WAS the light in its first flush and flower.

 

And that gift of being able to sense the light was given to him by countless angels along the way.  They would meet him in unexpected places, cup their hands together and pass the light to him—soul to soul, cupped hands to cupped hands spreading the wonder of the light.

 

So when the water broke and the tears came in a sudden flood, and the contractions curled him up on the floor, and when the pain—that deep, relentless pain flashed and exploded within him—somewhere inside he held on to the great and terrible hands of the mountains, somehow he held the light of the fireflies in his voice, and starlight in his tears…and then…

 

…almost without realizing it, almost without a sound


the child was born.


stillness bloomed.


 A calmness that walked the borders of bliss thrummed the air like a harp of gladness.


And the singing began.  The words flowed—images and silver threads, weaving it all together into a living, organic tapestry of such grand fluidity that he could only ease back and watch in wonder.


And as he listened to the child singing and speaking the Word, the child suddenly turned and faced him, and held out his hand saying: “Rise, dear fathermother, we are one and we must go—adventure beckons.  For there are many others in the throes of labor, and we must find them and midwife them into the world.”

Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog


Searching For A Center

Many of you know my mother crossed over to the other side

on February 18th.  Poems and songs still appear in my heart, 

needing to be shared. 

This one came on Sunday, July 3.

Searching For a Center

 

After my brother and I watched them lower

our mother’s casket into the cold, February ground,

with a back-hoe no less, the funeral director gave us each

 white roses he had saved from the viewing.

 

That night, alone, I held one of the roses,

and let the fragrant mass unravel carefully in my hands.

The petals fell in a heap, like silken snowflakes,

 and as I wept, searching for a center, I understood:

 

The center of things is nearer to the thorns

than to the blossom, nearer to the ending

than to the beginning, and nearer to the unraveling of yourself

than to the trying to hold on for dear life.

Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog


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